I was born in a country half a way around the globe where I am living now, in China.
Before I moved to America, I had never even heard of English before. When I finally had the privilege to move to America, everything was new for me; it was both exciting and chilling, at the same time. The English language was both different and unique. At the beginning of my times in America, I had been struggling hard at school to understand English, but with the time, everything began to be easier and easier.
I started writing my first academic paper back at High School. Then, everything was so straightforward with a simple direction that writing anything needed the elimination of words: I, me, or my. This was just like "erasing identity from writing. It can be truly admirable and enable everyone to work towards success, without considering race, gender, or social class" (Williams 710). This was somewhat the contributed to my success during my English class at High School. Now, I have a chance of expressing myself in my own writing! Nevertheless, what is identity actually? Identity refers to "The fact of being whoever one is" (“Google”) despite the fact that for the few last years I have never heard of the word “identity”.
Will this be difficult for me to find my own identity in my academic paper writing for the first time? I want to create the change; and I want other people to understand that identity will not hurt their writing, but, in return, it will help them. In the works of Bronwyn T. Williams, the author wants his readers to understand that identity has always been present in academic papers; the academic writing without identity will not help anyone. This is evident in the following that, "March triumphantly by writing assignments for one class after another.
" (Williams 711) In the paper, I will explain the significance of identity in the academic writing with the help of evidences, quotes from authorities, and my personal experience (Ivani%u010D 3). Literature Review According to the proponents of academic writing, the elimination of identity in writing can be egalitarian and support the one towards success. According to various scholars, literacy involves the cultural construction located in some contexts and shaped by the forces existing in the institution. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to inform students on the importance of identity in the academic writing. It is worth nothing that the academic writing is not all about conveying a message, but on involving the self-representation (Hyland 352). According to the recent research, the academic writing is impersonal but not entirely; writers only gain the credibility by projecting the identity granted by the individual authority.
To incorporate the aspect of identity into the academic writing, it is necessary for the one to use the first person pronoun. However, this does not happen except in such situations when students get the authority from their teacher to use the first person in the papers. According to the research, an emphasis has been made on the fact that disciplines have the various views regarding knowledge. In addition, there has been the significant emphasis on the different research practices and the ways of perceiving the world by students.
Therefore, the academic writing is not all about the uniformly faceless prose as most people perceive to be. Instead, it is all about the display of peculiarities among the fields of study (Peirce 2). As a result, the differences are clear in the divers’ forms, expressions, and arguments that include the identity of a writer. According to the research, it is evident that most writers ignore or do not include the first person pronoun. The use of the first person in writing varies depending on disciplines.
For instance, in the writings associated with sciences, most of writers do not use the first person pronoun. In addition, they do not incorporate the aspect of identity, because they major in highlighting the issues related to their studies. On the other hand, for social sciences and humanities with common types of writing, the identity of the writer is general. In the case of William’s work, the use of the first person to involve the identity is common. This is because his writing derives from the humanity nature, hence, the need for the writer identity to expound or ensure the understanding of readers. Therefore, it is worth nothing that most writers use the first person pronoun to present their calm and bottom line works or results.
In addition, most writers use their identity to enable readers to understand their main contributions. This means that for the academic writing to be effective, it depends on the choice of language. It is worth nothing that the writer identity is not concerning the use of the first person but this also refers to the way the writers employ their own pereptions of various contexts. Traditionally, most people have considered the academic writing as being impersonal and dry. This writing involves the exploration of ideas related to individuals objectively.
According to the requirements of most textbooks, writers advise individuals to stand aside their identity during writing, and, instead, direct their writing to anonymity (Tang and John 39). However, the recent research has clearly shown that the academic writing should not be impersonal or distant. Instead, the academic writing should be the one where the presence of the writer should significantly be felt. As a result, the ways how writers create their own identities in the academic writing have been the issue analyzed. Methodology In this section, the various attempts will explain the ways in which the first person pronoun is applied in the academic writing. According to the research, it is clear that not all instances that use the pronoun ‘I’ are similar; this depends on the degree of power of understanding created by the use of the first person (Giltrow, Gooding, Sawatsky and Burgoyne 9).
The following issues were the subject to the research by Williams in his writing; he applies the meanings of ‘I’ - ‘I’ as an originator, ‘I’ as a guide, ‘I’ as a representative, ‘I’ as an architect, and ‘I’ as a research process. According to the works of Williams, ‘I’ used as a representative is in the identification using the first person pronoun and in plural this refers to ‘we’ or ‘us’ pronouns. These pronouns can be used to mean something general, for instance, today we refer to people. When ‘I’ refers to the guide of an essay, a reader of the essay will understand it as the new language in writing.
This will mean that the writer is guiding the readers in writing to the specific point; ‘I’ used in the research process shows the various stages involved in the research. This could be from the collected data, source textbook, or the subjects of interview. In the architecture, ‘I’ refers to the writer or organizer of the construction. ‘I’ can be used as an opinion holder where the writer aims at informing readers of the source of opinion. ‘I’ as an originator refers to the situation where the writer records his own ideas to the paper. These are the various applications of the first person pronoun in the academic writing.
In this paper, ’I’ refers to the originator of my own works in the academic writing and the works by Williams in his book. The Data Analysis and Results Using the various ‘I’ pronouns, I have been able to identify different examples that Williams incorporated the aspect of identity. For a clear understanding of the various applications of the pronoun ‘I’ for the identity in works I will divide the article into five parts (Hewings 64). In every part, I will indicate the number of times the various aspects of the first person are used.
Discussion It is easy to explain the results in the table above. In all the parts of William’s article, ’I’ as a guide and ‘I’ for the representation do not exist. This is clear that Williams does not want to engage himself into a passive role in his article. Out of the 10 instances, in the first part where the first person pronoun is dominant, over 40% refers to an originator. This is because in the first part the writers spend most of their time introducing themselves and the reason behind their research (Lillis 88). Even in my writing, I have spent most of my time in the introduction to introduce myself.
30 % of the pronouns ‘I’ used to represent an opinion holder. This means that he wants to incorporate the opinions of other people who contributed into his works. The pronoun ‘I’ for an architect is used for only 10%, and the pronoun ‘I’ as for a research process is used as well for 10% only. In the second part, 83% of the pronoun ‘I’ in the research process is used because in this part Williams is presenting his research by collecting the data with the help of questionnaires, diaries, interviews, and home visits. In the third part, the total cases of the first person used are 16.
The pronoun ‘I’ in the research process is used up to 31% because in this part the writer aims at presenting the theories based on the previous research done. There are 25% instances where the pronouns ‘I’ as an architecture are used for assisting Williams to sustain his ideas. This part has the highest percentage of the first person pronoun - 30%. Out of all 11 instances where the first person pronoun is used in the fourth part, 45% represent the originator. This is so because in this section Williams aims at analyzing his findings. In the fifth part, out of all 11 instances where the first person pronoun is used, 54% refer to the originator and 36% explain the writer identity (Williams 710).
Conclusion Out of all 54 instances where the first person pronoun is used in Williams’ article, 37% represent the pronoun ‘I’ as an originator and 33% represent the research process. This means that in the article the aspect of the writer identity is essential during the whole research. When the article was firstly published, the issue of identity was not made clear and essential by linguists. This is the reason why the writer had to incorporate the instances of the first person. This paper has clearly displayed that in all sections Williams incorporated the aspect of the first person.
He may be unaware of the importance of identity in the academic writing unconsciously included. Traditionally, most people perceive the academic writing as an interpersonal and faceless discourse (Hyland 12). However, recently most people through the research have given the suggestion of negotiation for the identity in the academic writing. This means that academic writings should not eliminate the identity of any writer. In this paper, my aim is to explore the notion of identity in the academic writing by focusing on the first person pronoun. The main issue that I am trying to put across is that as the writers record events, it is essential to consider the issue of identity so that their message can be understood easily.
In most cases, writing determined for the academic exposition should be objective, analytical, and, at the same time impersonal. In Williams’ article, the aim is informing his readers that writing with identity is necessary compared with the writing without identity. This means that teachers should explain to students of the importance related to identity in writing.
